


God Bless The HVF

by mittamoo



Series: In The Flesh au [2]
Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Angst, Gen, In The Flesh AU, Suicide, a good wholesome bit of misery for you all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-30 15:30:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11466414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mittamoo/pseuds/mittamoo
Summary: The Rising was hard on everyone, it was hard on especially Chas Because her son was one of the risen. When news of a cure spreads Chas can't help but hope her son is among them.In The Flesh Au





	God Bless The HVF

**Author's Note:**

> Will I ever write something entirely happy? Probably not.

On the 22nd of April, her son locks himself in her brother’s garage and starts the car engine. On the 22nd of April, Aaron is pulled from the car by his best friend and his uncle. On the 22nd of April, Cain burst though The Smithy’s front door. On the 22nd of April, an ambulance is called and her son is rushed to hospital. On the 22nd of April, Chas sits in a hospital waiting room whilst her son is on life support. On the 22nd of April her son tried to kill himself.

On the 23rd of April, at quarter past three in the morning, her son succumbs to massive organ failure.

On the 30th of April, they put him in the ground.

After that her life falls apart, she doesn’t know how many screaming matches her and Paddy have had but she supposes far too many to ever truly repair their friendship. Sometimes she forgets that Paddy is grieving for a son too, perhaps even more so than her after all he was more of a dad to Aaron than she was a mum. Then The Rising happens, and to begin with nobody has time for things like grief, the only thing anyone has room to think about is fear, and survival. In that first year the government had promised them aid, had promised to send troops to protects them from the risen dead but help never comes. So the Human Volunteer Army is born in their absence. To begin with it’s too dangerous for Chas to visit the graveyard, so she stays at home and prays, she prays that her son’s grave remains undisturbed. Think of her son as one of them, one of those rotters, it tears her apart inside.

 Six months later, the streets are finally safe to roam during the day, the graveyard isn’t strictly off limits to regular civilians now. Chas reckons that she should have stepped up to join the HVF with a few of the other Dingles, not all of them mind but a few of them did join. She couldn’t bear the thought of possibly coming face to face with her son, turning into little more than a rabid animal. Perhaps after her trip to the graveyard, after she finds out what she’s been dreading the answer too she’ll join herself. The sunken in graves are a sight that she should’ve expected, deep holes with uneven sides, surrounded by clumps of dirt and pull out grass. Some of the graves have even sunk into the empty grave-sites. She knows the way to his grave like she knows her own face, she reaches the empty hole, and the sunken in headstone. She doesn’t think she’s going to join the HVF after all.

From then on, she isn’t sure if she should pray that the HVF had put her son down early on or if she should pray that he’s still out there somewhere. So she avoids thinking about it all together. She pretends to herself that her son is still laying still beneath ground, undisturbed. When rumours of the government herding up and capturing the rotters instead of killing them, when rumours of a cure come about, she prays that her son is still out there somewhere, waiting to be brought back to her.

The government calls them Partially Deceased Syndrome sufferers now, because they’re not monsters, they’re sick. She isn’t sure how to feel about that, calling it an illness doesn’t make the number of missing person posters hung in the village hall any smaller, but calling it an illness also brings the possibility of having her son back. Calling it an illness finally gives her the smallest chance to say all the things she’d never got to say to him when he was still alive. It means that she gets a chance to make sure her son knows how much she loves him. So when she hears about the re-assimilation program for PDS sufferers, when she find out that Aaron is in that program. Chas feels like she could die right then and there.

When the time comes for Aaron to come home, she isn’t even the one to go and collect him from Norfolk, that role falls to Paddy. In the first civil conversation the two of them have had since they lost him, they agree that Chas can come and see him the following day. Chas wants Aaron to come back and live with her, but Aaron had lived with Paddy before and she’d have to kill Paddy with her bare hands to get him to let Aaron come home with her. So she plays nice and agrees to wait to see her son.

The commotion wakes her in the early hours of the morning, there’s screaming and yelling coming down from the street. When Chas recognises Paddy’s voice she’s out onto the street before she even has chance to slip a pair of shoes on. The HVF are crowded in the street outside of Paddy’s home. There are two men holding Paddy back and she sees why he was yelling now. There, in the street is her little boy, forced down onto her knees with a gun pressed against his temple. He is completely silent, the only sound is Paddy; screaming, pleading, begging for her son’s life. The HVF don’t let up, the ones who aren’t holding a gun to her son’s head are stood to attention, out of the corner of her eye she can see Zak, eyes averted. He does nothing to defend Aaron, he remains silent. The begging becomes more and more desperate, Aaron remains silent, the gun does not move from his temple. The trigger is pulled. Semi-rotted brains splatter the driveway. It is silent.

Three years later on the 23rd of April, at a quarter past three, Chas Dingle loses her son for a second time.

On the 30th of April, they put him back in the ground.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I might write some more in the au if people like it. Feedback is always welcome


End file.
